Complex manufacturing projects such as the design and manufacture of aircraft generally require that engineering information, component parts and processes be successfully integrated. With regard in particular to the production of aircraft, typically hundreds of thousands of parts and associated processes must be successfully integrated according to a comprehensive plan to produce an aircraft in accordance with the engineering information.
Engineering information typically includes engineering drawings and parts lists that cooperatively form an engineering product plan that describes how materials, components assemblies and sub-assemblies must be combined to form the desired product. A manufacturing process plan is subsequently compiled so that the identified parts in the desired product may be properly scheduled for assembly on the factory floor. Suitable scheduling and coordination is particularly important in complex projects since factors such as the overall cost of the project, the time required for completion of the project, and the risk of failure must be accurately estimated. In addition, other variables of importance such as the overall efficiency of the project need to be accurately estimated. Accordingly, the manufacturing process plan typically includes factory floor planning, tool planning and scheduling, compilation of work plans for assembly personnel, assembly plans, and other similar activities.
Although existing process planning and analysis methods are useful, they nevertheless exhibit several drawbacks, and thus may not accurately represent a selected process. For example, the planned configuration, as expressed in the manufacturing process plan may require assembly of the product in a sequence not contemplated by the designed configuration, as expressed in the engineering process plan. Since existing methods generally do not permit variability in tasks or resources in the process to be effectively resolved, conflicts that arise during the product assembly must often be resolved informally on the factory floor, which in turn, often requires expensive and time-consuming rework.
In conventional systems, in-process manufacturing views or simulations of different manufacturing contexts are only visible in the installation plan that they were created in. For example, wire harness manufacturing context for an aircraft is only visible in its created installation plan, oxygen tube manufacturing context of the aircraft is visible (by manufacturing engineers, for example) in its installation plan and so forth. If reference to the manufacturing views is needed or reuse of them in a later manufacturing process is required, the manufacturing views need to be re-created from scratch. In order to reduce or eliminate a significant amount of redundant work, it is desirable to model a lifecycle of a manufacturing context and relate the lifecycle across multiple control station installation plans. Further, it is desirable to make these visual representations of manufacturing states (such as wire harness manufacturing states in an aircraft) available for efficient use and re-use throughout the build cycle.